Synopsis

The Cure perform "10:15 Saturday Night" in a stark, no-frills promotional clip that reflects the song's stripped-down early post-punk character. The band plays directly to camera in a plain studio setting, with Robert Smith appearing notably clean-cut and youthful, long before the dramatic goth styling associated with his later image. The performance is intercut with simple close-ups and instrumental shots, keeping the focus on the trio's tense delivery, sharp guitar work, and the song's atmosphere of lonely Saturday-night frustration.

Factoids & Trivia

• Released in 1978, this was The Cure's first music video.

• The clip is a straightforward performance piece, a useful document of The Cure before the elaborate, surreal visual style that became associated with their later videos.

• Robert Smith appears with short hair and a relatively conventional appearance, making the video an early record of his pre-goth public image.

• The song originally appeared as the B-side of "Killing an Arab" in December 1978 and later opened The Cure's 1979 debut album, "Three Imaginary Boys."

• Smith wrote the song when he was 16. Its central image of a dripping tap came from an evening spent alone at his family's kitchen table.

• A demo of "10:15 Saturday Night" helped attract the attention of Chris Parry, who subsequently signed The Cure to his Fiction label.

• The video was later included in "Staring at the Sea: The Images," the band's 1986 home-video compilation.